


Missing You

by equilateral_asshat



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, before they get together, or even have their feelings figured out, pinecest - Freeform, pinescest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:29:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equilateral_asshat/pseuds/equilateral_asshat





	Missing You

“But _Dipper_ , the penguins NEED my help!”

“Yeah but, do you have to be there? For almost a whole week? I mean, Mabel, you could make the sweaters here and-” Dipper interjected, but she stomped her foot in protest.

“But if I’m _here_ then I won’t know how big to make them!” Mabel was busy packing some last minute essentials in her bag; spare knitting needles, a half dozen more skeins of yarn, maybe a few patches to give some of the birds an extra bit of flair.

The day before, news had reported that there had been an oil spill along the west coast. A seabird sanctuary near them had been affected, and one of the organizations racing to help asked for volunteers to help in several ways. One such way was to knit sweaters for the penguins to stay warm in after being washed. Mabel had, of course, leapt at the chance.

Dipper was the only person in the house opposed to her going; their father said it was a great chance for her to put her knitting skills to use, and their mother noted how fantastic it would look on future college applications. And, while he couldn’t argue with either parent, Dipper didn’t want to admit his primary reason for wanting her to stay home was that he would be lonely.

It was Summer, and this year they hadn’t managed to get up to Gravity Falls, on account of their great uncles, Stan and Ford, being off on some other trip for the time being. At first, it hadn’t been quite so bad, because the twins had the house to themselves for more than two thirds of the day throughout the week, while their parents were working. And with Mabel gone, he’d have nearly an entire week alone. Most teenage boys would relish this time alone to do, well… teenage boy things.

But not Dipper.

“I guess, but… I dunno, it’s just gonna be lonely around here without you,” he admitted. His twin sister pouted at him, then stood up on her tiptoes, brushing his hair from his forehead to plant a gentle kiss on his birthmark.

“I’m gonna miss you too, bro-bro, but I’ve already made my mind up, I’m gonna go put some sweaters on some birds. The week’s gonna go by before you even know it!” she reassured him before she gave him a quick hug, then grabbed her luggage and took off down the stairs. Before he could even think to tell her goodbye, she was out the door and in their mom’s van to ride to the train station.

———

———

The first full day wasn’t as bad as he had initially suspected it would be. He had full control over the remote, and the volume of the TV. Six hours of Ghost Harassers, followed by four hours of Tiger Fist, with a pizza break somewhere in the middle. And he didn’t have to argue over the toppings, either! Maybe being alone for a while wouldn’t be so bad.

Or so he thought, until he started getting ready for bed. Every night of their lives, the twins had told one another goodnight. Even when they had been split up into separate rooms after turning thirteen, they had still made sure to tell the other to sleep well. After brushing his teeth and changing into his pajamas, Dipper walked to Mabel’s bedroom door, and before he realized what he was doing, knocked, opened the door, and stuck his head in to talk to his sister.

“Goodnight, Ma-oh… yeah.” He frowned, then pulled out his cell phone. He debated calling his sister, but thought better of it given the late hour. Instead, he sent a text.

“ **Goodnight Mabes, miss you.** ” He stared at his phone for awhile, waiting for a reply back, but got nothing. With a heavy sigh, he retreated to his own room and curled up to restless sleep.

———

———

Day two of being alone all day was much less fantastic than the first. The most startling thing about having the house all to himself for most of the day was the unsettling silence. Usually Mabel was laughing, or singing, or making some sort of sound. Without her there to provide her usual level of background noise, even with the television turned up, an unearthly sort of quietness had made its presence known.

Dipper found it difficult to focus on any show he tried to watch. It wasn’t the same without his sister there to make commentary with him, and he was even starting to miss her groans of boredom. Yep, he was going insane, because he actually _missed_ being _annoyed_ by his sister.

Halfway through the day, his mind started to wander, and when he snapped out of it, he found himself standing in her bedroom door, hand on the knob, the door wide open. Why was he even going in her room, without her here? He shouldn’t be doing that. He was about to close the door, when he noticed that in her hurry to leave, she had left her room a mess.

Before he could even process the thought, he was gathering up the clean clothes she had spread over her bed, then folding them. He caught himself lingering on a few of the sweaters she had decided to leave behind, thumbs rubbing over the soft wool. Shaking his head, he set them aside and continued to fold.

After he had everything folded, he placed each article of clothing into it’s proper drawer in her dresser, then hanging the sweaters up in her closet. He hesitated on the last one, then hugged it to himself gently.

“I miss you…”

———

———

The third day felt like torture.

Dipper awoke to a silent house. No laughter, no stories or hairbrained schemes to get some new boy’s attention. His phone barely buzzed at all, which meant his sister was either in a dead spot or super busy. He usually got little else than a goodnight message or a picture of a penguin wearing one of her sweaters.

He ate breakfast, then stood under the showerhead until the hot water tank had given its all, and only cold water remained. He toweled himself dry, then regarded the clothing he’d originally set out to wear. Then he turned his attention to the pile of clothing he’d slept in the night before. He went with the pajamas, and flopped back into bed.

When he stirred from his nap later, he played video games on his PC for about an hour. When that couldn’t hold his attention, he tried singing loudly to BABBA, as his sister would torment him whenever he did it around her. His heart just wasn’t in it, it seemed.

Eventually, he found himself standing in her room again. Her floor was a minefield of lip gloss containers, crafting supplies, socks and t-shirts. Stuffed animals were everywhere in sight. For as much as she harassed him about his floor usually being a mess, her own wasn’t much better. At the same time that he began to chastise himself for being in her room without permission, he started picking up the make up he could find and setting it at her vanity (he would organize it later), then moving onto her crafting supplies that were strewn about.

Glue-sticks, tubes of glitter, sequins, spools of thread and once or twice a stray needle or straight pin (how she didn’t step on them was beyond his scope of reasoning). He even rewound a couple of loose balls of yarn, stacking them back in the basket she kept for her yarn collection. He then gathered up the crochet hooks and knitting needles she had left behind, and organized them by size into their respective places in the little cardboard-organizer he’d made for her. The only modification she had made was taping a selfie she’d taken with him to the back of it, as well as plastering every available inch of it that she could with stickers.

Next he grabbed a laundry basket and gathered up every bit of dirty clothing he could find on her floor, then he dumped its contents down the laundry chute. The result: a visible floor in his sister’s room. He managed a small grin, admiring his handiwork when his phone buzzed.

“ **Goodnight bro-bro, miss you. See you in two days! ;*** ”

Huh, a winky smooch… Why did that make him feel so funny? She usually reserved that for her crushes or something, the most he ever got was a winky smile. Pushing the thought from his mind, he realized that the goodnight-text meant it was late. He needed to go back to his own room.

“ **Goodnight Mabes, see you soon :)** ”

———

———

The next day, as soon as he was up, Dipper found himself back in her room. He couldn’t fathom why he was even in here, again, cleaning. She was probably going to be furious with him. He’d been in here, cleaning up, she’d probably think he had been snooping through her secret things like some sort of pervert. Yet, here he was. Today’s job, apparently, would start with her vanity.

How his sister ever found any of her makeup in a timely fashion was beyond him; nothing here was organized at all. Lipstick, nail polish and mascara all seemed to inhabit spaces together, various brushes and sponges just seemed to pile up where ever they fell. Eyeliner pencils were scattered everywhere.

“Mabel, I suddenly understand why it takes girls forever to get ready,” he muttered to the empty room. Sitting down, he began to organize. First he separated everything by type of makeup which was facilitated by labels. Then he started to organize things by color, starting with reds and moving through the gradients in the classic ROY-G-BIV order. He encounter a hiccup in his busy-work when he spent a half hour worrying over whether he should separate lipsticks and lipgloss or not (he finally decided that yes, he should separate the two).

Once that was done, he finally retreated back to his own room and grabbed a fresh change of clothes, then showered. After he was clean and dressed, he made the conscious effort to satiate his angrily growling stomach. After lunch, he decided to read, and as such ran to his room for a book. Almost immediately, he gravitated towards his sister’s room as soon as he had his novel in hand.

“Why… am I even in here for this?” he asked the empty room. He was met with silence, which did nothing to help ease his sudden burst of self-consciousness. He stepped back and out of the room, turning around to march back to his own room. Flopping back on his bed, he opened the book and started to read.

Or, at least, he tried to read. His room felt so alien to him all of a sudden. Was it still just a nagging sense of loneliness? Was he really _that_ badly bothered being home alone this long, so many days in a row? Was he really just about to step back into his sister’s room and-oh, yes, apparently he was. Because he had just laid back on her bed, book in hand, and felt cozier. Less alone somehow.

In the back of his mind, Dipper knew trying to fight the urge to stay in here was futile. This room was suddenly filling an empty space in his life he’d never anticipated he’d needed filled this way. He frowned as he read, distracted from the mystery of the story by the one in the back of his mind. Why was spending so much time without Mabel around so difficult?

He couldn’t get the pieces of this puzzle to fit together. Everything he tried to do to distract himself from her being gone had centered around her bedroom. Which he realized probably meant he was dwelling on her being gone more than he wanted to admit to himself. Then again, most people didn’t live with their best friends their entire life. He felt like a tiny piece of himself was missing. In fact he hadn’t felt this lonely since he’d realized that there wasn’t an immediate chance of him and Wendy-

His brain short circuited for a brief moment. That _clearly_ couldn’t be what was going on here! He’d had a hardcore crush on Wendy, and this was his sister! He couldn’t have a crush on Mabel, of all people, could he…?

“Okay, Dipper, we’ll just stick that on the shelf for a later day. Right now we have to figure out where they put the stuffed woodchuck after they stole it,” he muttered, returning to his book.

———

———

Mabel bounced excitedly in the passenger seat of the van. The relief effort for the oil spill had garnered so much attention they’d cleaned up all of the birds and most of the coastline early! And she had been a part of that. It was so much fun, even if it was hard work. Best of all, Dipper would be so excited to see her home a full day early.

He had looked so heartbroken over having to be alone, she’d almost felt guilty. But there had been an emergency, one that required tiny sweaters to be made for tiny penguins! How could she say no to a penguin-sweater-emergency?! She just couldn’t. He’d understand.

Once her mom pulled the van into the driveway, Mabel leaned over, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I had to pull you awake from work for this, Mama.”

“Nonsense, it only took a half of my lunch break. I’ll be fine,” her mother reassured her. “Your dad will be home later, but I’m certain your brother’s in there somewhere. He’s been awfully quiet without you here.” Mabel just nodded, grabbing her luggage and scampering up onto the porch as her mother started her return trip to work.

Stepping inside, Mabel noticed the house was indeed quiet. She could hear the grandfather clock ticking away noisily in the living room. Her bro-bro was nowhere to be seen, and it was still kinda early. Usually right now he’d be trying to watch some lame paranormal-detective show on TV, and she’d be trying to wrestle the remote away from him. She did it purely in jest, though; it was fun making him work for control of the TV. Almost a little too fun when he won, at times, and had her pinned while he snatched the remote away. She shivered at that thought, then drove it from her head. Nope, nuh uh, she wasn’t having those feels right now. Shut up, Mabel’s brain.

Her next guess was that he was likely in his bedroom, playing some dumb video games or doing gross teenage-boy things. As she came up the stairs, though, she noticed it was very quiet. Maybe he was reading, then? She knocked gently on his door.

“Heeeyyy Dipper, guess who came home-” she started, swinging his door open fast to try and surprise him, “-early?” The announcement was made to an audience of precisely zero bro-bro’s. None. He wasn’t in his room. Where the heck was he hiding at?

Leaning back out into the hallway, she noticed the bathroom door was wide open, the lights off, so he couldn’t be in there. It wasn’t like him to leave the house without a note, or the door being unlocked either. Where could he have gone? The sound of a gentle snore broke her line of thought.

“What the hey-hey?” she muttered as she tiptoed across the hallway and pushed her own door open. She gasped when she stepped in; the room was immaculate. Her vanity was cleaned off, the various makeup kits and boxes closed. Her craft supplies had been placed on her desk in an organized fashion, and her yarn basket was neatly piled. Heck, she had a _floor_ again. In the few days leading up to this trip she had went on a crafting blitz and turned her room upside down. Hurricane Mabel didn’t leave floors uncovered. However, none of that compared to what she saw on her bed.

Dipper was curled up, clinging to one of her pillows, sound asleep. He had his phone in one hand, and a book in the other. Every few seconds he’d snore softly, not enough to be considered loud so much as just peaceful. Why was he in here? Why had he cleaned her room? Had be been going through her things?!

She made a quick and silent effort to double check some of her more personal hiding places for things; he hadn’t even touched them, it looked like. He’d just put away some of her sweaters and shirts, cleaned up her floor and organized her makeup. Why though? He must have been spending an awful lot of time in here.

Mabel knelt down at the edge of her bed and crossed her arms there, cradling her head in them while she stared at her brother. He never did anything like this before, but then again usually he was only in her room to help her with some little project or another, or when she had a rough date and needed pulled back out of sweater town. He stirred a little, burying his face in her pillow with a grumble.

“Mnnngghh… miss you…” he mumbled in his sleep, and she felt herself smile as she stood back up. He’d missed her so much that he’d cleaned her room and snuggled up on her bed to read and passed out? Aw man, now she couldn’t be upset with him.

Then again, he was asleep on her bed. She’d need that bed for herself in a couple hours. But he also looked so peaceful. Ugh, what to do? She sat on the edge of the bed, and ran her fingers through his hair. How did he have such soft hair for a guy? She was pretty sure he didn’t use conditioner and she didn’t have hair THAT soft. Ugh, so unfair.

At her touch, he stirred again, eyes blinking open, grumbling in his tired stupor. “Huh, wha-? Whozat?” When he looked up and saw his sister, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Instantly he looked far more awake, eyes wide with panic. “Oh shoot! I’m so sorry Mabel, I didn’t mean to be in here, I guess I just missed you a whole lot and being in here was comforting, and-” he started to explain, but she tugged him into a tight, squeezy hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek.

“I missed you too, you dork.”


End file.
